Mario Superstar Baseball

Spiffy:

Iffy:

Will the Nintendo characters be enough of a hook to get players interested?

Nintendo certainly likes sports games. But not just the usual fair. It likes to inject its own brand of world-famous franchise characters into the mix to add a little spice. We've seen it now for years with the Mario Golf and Mario Tennis licenses, but this year, there's a couple of new sports making headway towards the GameCube. Aside from the very promising Super Mario Strikers, Mario Superstar Baseball is looking like it might just pique the interest of Nintendo and sports fans alike.

At a core level, Mario Superstar Baseball appears to be nothing more than a simplistic baseball title crammed full of likeable characters, signature special moves, and of course, all-too familiar locations. The single-player Challenge mode turns out to be just that. Selecting from a healthy roster of players, including Mario, Luigi, Bowser, and Yoshi, players form a team with one member leading the troops. From here, you can go up against a CPU-controlled team playing traditional baseball.

The usual pitching, batting, and running moves are all there including bunts, curveballs, and so on. It wouldn't be a Mario game without some over-the-top specials, and MSB is no exception. Each team gets a finite number of power hits/pitches which are unique to individual characters. These shots are pretty hard to bat against, or to field against, and really keep you on your toes. The idea, then, is to score the most runs against the other team over a set number of innings. It's all pretty straightforward stuff.

But it seems as though it's a fair amount fun, nonetheless. I've been playing a few of the guys here at the office over the last week or so, and although I'm not personally as hyped about baseball as, say, the tennis or golf Mario games, its definitely got a level of appeal that only first-party Nintendo games seem to have.

There are, of course, lots of other modes to play, and what seems like a healthy selection of unlockable stages and characters to chew through. A selection of mini-game stages sees various different batting and pitching skill games, where the idea is to score big and beat the three other competing players. Other modes include Exhibition, and the cool but bizarre Toy Field mode where up to four players take turns to bat and field with the aim of the game being to hit the ball into the air and land it on one of a number of special squares scattered all over the field. Some award coins, while others act as score multipliers. It's a little confusing at first, but decent fun once you've got the hang of it all.

While MSB might not be the biggest first-party title of the year coming from Nintendo, there's a good chance that it'll strike a chord with sports and non-sports fans alike simply based on the Nintendo-infused content. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the final build of the game soon, so I can really put it through its paces. For me, a game such as Mario Superstar Baseball will live and die on its multiplayer longevity and single-player unlockable rewards. I'm hopeful right now that it's going to deliver on both fronts.